By Elizabeth DickinsonElizabeth Dickinson is a Gulf-based Deca journalist. Follow her on Twitter: @dickinsonbeth.

August 26, 2010 - 6:11 pm

Want evidence that the government in Somalia — a country that tops the 2010 Failed States Index — needs desperate help? Allow me to show you the money. Literally.

According to the Annual Financial Report released by the office of the Prime Minister today, Somalia’s budget in the fiscal year 2009 was just over $11 million. (The budget of Minneapolis Minnesota, by contrast, is $1.4 billion.) The two largest sources of revenue collected were customs duties from the main Mogadishu port ($6.2 million) and exit fees from the airport ($351,920). Taxes couldn’t be collected due to security. The government recieved $2.875 million in bilateral aid — the largest total, $1.6 million coming from Libya (the United States gave just $25,000 — about the equivalent of a very entry-level staffer’s annual income.)

Bad. News. But where the situation really comes home is in the line items: While $9.8 million of the country’s $11 million was spent on salaries and wages, they are hardly anything to write home about. The president’s chief of staff earns $2,250 a year. The governor of the central bank earns $1,000. And $325,000 of the $501,000 that covers the Prime Minister and President’s offices goes to travel. Wages in the military and other defense roles account for $6 million (The Economist recently estimated that it costs $1 million to keep one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for a year.)

Of course, there are other ways that the government is getting help — ways that won’t show up on a budget like this: African Union peacekeepers, for example, and U.S. training programs for their soldiers in Uganda. But still, this is pretty incredible stuff. Even Liberia had a budget of $80 million to work with after its civil war. And it wasn’t actively trying fight an insurgency.

The result is literally deadly. Which raises a frustration that the Somali government undoubtedly has: the international community helped put together this experiment in government, but there’s less buck behind making it work. Not that this is easy; corruption is rumored rampant among government staff. Then again, you would have to pay me a lot more than $1,000 to be the central banker of Somalia… Not saying it justifies corruption, but it’s also no Madoff affair.